


The Weight of a Name

by StarryNox



Series: Edelclaude Week 2020 [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Tiana von Riegan - Freeform, Trust Falls, aka edelclaude and the mortifying ordeal of being known, cw: mention of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25224748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarryNox/pseuds/StarryNox
Summary: The game goes like this: they take turns telling a truth. Long or short, shallow or deep, it doesn’t matter. What does is that it’s something they choose to tell, and that the other listens.Edelclaude Week Day 5: Trust / Dreams
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Series: Edelclaude Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821904
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46
Collections: Edelclaude Week





	The Weight of a Name

The game goes like this: they take turns telling a truth. Long or short, shallow or deep, it doesn’t matter. What does is that it’s something they choose to tell, and that the other listens. It is a reminder of from where they’ve come, of dangerous truths spilled in a clearing outside the walls of Garreg Mach all those years ago, a reminder that it’s not always the worst thing in the world to submit oneself to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

But more than that, Claude enjoys the intimacy of the game—it’s something that’s theirs and theirs alone, played in quiet moments when it’s just the two of them and they can just be Edelgard and Claude, not the future leaders of Fódlan or the current leaders of the resistance army. It’s a game that is played laying under the stars, or in the candlelit privacy of one of their quarters. It is proof that they can let go of the masks they both so often wear and have someone who will see and accept them for who they are, flaws, traumas, and all. Proof that they will always stand by each other, no matter what happens. That there is an unshakeable bond between the two of them, one they can always rely on.

It is here that Claude and Edelgard are at their bravest, baring the parts of them that they allow no one else to see. It’s through this little game of theirs that Claude had learned that all is not _quite_ as well between Edelgard and Hubert as the two might have everyone else believe, that there’s a rift formed, ironically, by Hubert’s devotion and, understandably, by the fact that it was he who convinced Edelgard to work with Those Who Slither in the Dark. For that truth, Claude had offered a similar one, as he tends to—as much as he claimed ( and still claims ) that Hilda is his best friend, she is not. Even now, he cannot fathom opening himself up to her the way he has to Edelgard, cannot fathom telling her the full truth of who he is. Oh, he’s sure she’ll find out eventually, but he silently dreads the day she does.

But oftentimes, their truths are lighter in nature. They tell each other stories from childhoods cut short far too early. Of chasing other children with frogs and sneaking into the wyvern aviary, of freezing cold Fhirdiad winters and the unrelenting heat of the Almyran sun. Their truths don’t even really have to be secrets, and these lighter ones often are not. Indeed, there have been times this little game of theirs has left the two of them giggling like schoolchildren, arms clutching their stomachs over silly things like the time a young Edelgard managed to convince Hubert to dress up as a princess so that she and Ferdinand might play the galant knights coming to his rescue.

It’s their version of a trust fall, he supposes, thinking back to the exercise Manuela had them do once back when he was a student. He’d utterly failed the exercise back then, but had somehow managed to laugh it off with a bit of self-deprecation that had left the others with no hard feelings in the end. Frankly, Claude likes this one better. There are people he can trust to catch him in a traditional trust fall exercise who aren’t exactly high on his list of people to bare his soul to…although he will concede that that list isn’t _quite_ as populated as it used to be. Perhaps it’s not saying all that much, seeing as said list used to involve just about everyone who isn’t trust family and Nader, but…progress is progress, and it’s not like he _needs_ to consider every single person in his life a confidant. Such a thing is unreasonable, if not downright ill-advised.

And, okay, after months of this song and dance, it’s less of a game and more like just _talking_ , but another truth is that it’s easier, when they have the structure of the game. It’s why they often turn to it when they have something they _really_ want to say...just as he does right now. For a moment, he closes his eyes and remembers.

_From a young age, Khalid had known the weight of a name. Back when he was young enough for his parents to indulge him so, back when his sister Sanaz still lived, he had crawled into his mother’s lap. Even then, he had been the sort to talk only when he was ready, and so his mother had allowed him to get comfortable and fiddle with the pendant of her necklace before he spoke._

_“Mâmân,” he’d said at last, gazing up at her with solemn eyes. “Why don’t I have a Fódlan name, like you do?” His mother had paused in her writing, and he had watched something sad flicker in her eyes._

_“Why do you ask, my sun?” she had asked, setting aside her pen and pressing a kiss to his forehead. And though he had leaned eagerly into her touch, basking in her affection, he hadn’t let it distract him from his inquiry._

_“Fódlan is in my blood,” he had told her. That Fódlan’s cowardice ran with it remained unspoken, but known—he had heard others say so plenty of times despite his youth, and was not naive enough to think his mother was spared from such judgment. “But it isn’t in my name, not like yours.” His mother had sighed, then, had carded her fingers through his hair._

_“Your father and I wished to protect you,” she had said at last, a sad smile upon her features. “We thought it would keep you safe.”_

_“But it didn’t work,” Khalid had replied, matter-of-fact in the way that only a child can be. Even then, he had been no stranger to attempts upon his life, but he had lived secure in the knowledge that his parents and the guards they trusted would keep him and his little sister safe._

_( They would find out, in time, that that didn’t work, either, but it had been a nice illusion, while it lasted. )_

_“No, it didn’t,” his mother had said. “But it was our hope when we named you, all the same.”_

_Khalid had been too young to hear the unspoken apology in her words, but he had accepted them all the same._

_The night before he had left for Fódlan, his mother had come to his bedroom bearing both a warning and a gift._

_“You must never let them know where you come from, my son,” she had told him sternly. “Understand? They will eat you alive if you do.” At fifteen, he had big dreams of the world beyond Almyra’s borders, a world that would accept him in a way Almyra wouldn’t. He hadn’t rolled his eyes—doing so would have been rude, but there was no hiding his skepticism from the woman who knew him best. His mother had grabbed him by the chin—not hard enough to hurt, but certainly firmly enough to convey the severity of her words. “Promise me.”_

_Back then, he had not known what kind of world awaited him beyond the Great Maw, which Fódlan had so self-centeredly named its throat. Still, he knew his mother—she would not ask him for such a thing with such severity without reason._

_“All right, all right! There’s no need to manhandle me, Mâmân!” he’d agreed, doing his level best to wiggle out of her grasp. She’d smiled, faintly, and kissed his brow before she let him go._

_“In Fódlan,” she had said, “your name is Claude. Claude von Riegan, named for the woman who followed her heart to marry into House Daphnel back when during its schism. You have never had any other name.”_

_Khalid, at the time still unconvinced it was truly as serious as his mother said, had nodded along all the same._

Now, he knows better, knows why his mother had been so insistent. It is, after all, the reason he’s fighting in the first place—to build a world that is accepting of all, that _values_ all. But Edelgard knows where he’s from, just as everyone else will sooner or later ( really, he has no idea how no one’s called him out on his evasiveness when it came to how he knows Nader ), and it hasn’t changed the way she sees him. More than that, he knows that his name, his full self, will be safe with her.

“In Almyra,” he begins at last, saying aloud that which she already knows to be true, “my name is Khalid.”

“Khalid,” Edelgard says slowly, as if testing out the unfamiliar syllables. “Did I say it correctly?”

“Not quite,” he says with a small smile. “It’s not quite like a Fódlan ‘k’ sound, and your emphasis is all wrong.” It takes Edelgard several more tries, but at last she gets it right and—Khalid’s breath hitches. It’s been _so long_ since he’s heard his Almyran name, and he revels in the intimacy of hearing it. True, in Almyra it’s what everyone calls him, but here in Fódlan it is something special. Here, it is a name only those he feels at home with know of.

“Do you prefer one over the other?” Edelgard asks, and Claude hums in response. It’s not a question he’s ever really considered, in all truth, but the answer comes without much difficulty.

“Not really. They’re both me. That said…it’s probably best to stick to Claude, unless it’s just the two of us.”

“That’s true…things are tense enough as it is,” Edelgard replies with a frown. “Though I’m glad our former classmates and even those amongst the Church who we knew as students are all at least coming around to the idea of working with those from outside Fódlan, if not outright embracing it…I can see why you would prefer to continue hiding it.”

“Yeah.” Even so, Khalid lets out a sigh. “Well, I never thought my ambitions would be easy. But, you know, between the two of us…it feels as if we can do anything.”

“Do anything, huh?” Edelgard’s tone can only be described as wistful, and Khalid turns his head towards her to find her expression somewhat bittersweet. “I like the sound of that.”

“Edelgard?” Despite his gentle nudge, she doesn’t elaborate. While he thinks he can guess what’s on her mind, he waits patiently for her to sift through her own thoughts. If she wants to talk about it, she will.

“When I was young, back before…well, everything, really, my parents and my sisters used to call me El,” she says instead. “It isn’t quite the same, in its meaning, but…you may call me El, if you’d like.” El. He’d called her that, once, years ago, and she’d snapped at him for it—though if it’s a name she associates with her deceased siblings, he can understand why. “It’s quite an honor, you know. The only other person I’ve allowed to call me it in a long time is Byleth.”

“El, huh? It’s cute.” Edelgard flushes pink even in the starlight, and he laughs.

“That’s—well, if you say so. All I meant to say is that…you, and Byleth, I suppose, although in a different way, are very important to me. And I’d like to think of you as…something like family.”

“Like family, hm?” For all her ruminating, he can’t help but tease her just a bit. “Didn’t realize you were thinking so far ahead into the future, El. Though I can’t say I mind it.” The pink hue upon her cheeks darkens, and she huffs.

“I’m being serious, Khalid.” _And so am I_ , he thinks. But he knows that she’s not thinking beyond a handful of years from now, convinced as she is that her time is short ( and, well, unless they’re able to end this war and Hanneman can focus on his research, he supposes she isn’t wrong ), and so he doesn’t push.

“I know, I know,” is what he says instead, rolling over and propping himself up on his elbow to face her. Upon seeing her stifle a yawn, he adds, “I love you, El.”

“I love you too, Khalid.” The game always ends like this, but it never fails to be just as sweet. Her expression is warm, and so is the feeling in his chest. He offers her a hand to help her to her feet, and they make their way down from the Star Terrace and to their quarters, fingers intertwined.

As he leans down to kiss Edelgard good night, he cannot help but think that his dreams have changed, if only a little. Now, he dreams, too, of a future with Edelgard at his side.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll admit that i struggled with this prompt because so many of my other fics have already touched on these themes, but i think this turned out all right regardless. i hope you enjoyed!


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